2006 Federal Election

If the recent Prince George weather delights you and you’re the type to praise global warming--“Bring it on if it means less snow!”--then don’t read on; this is not for you.

I’ve only been in Prince George five years but, in talking to long-time residents and just using common sense, it is clear to me the warmer weather is a dramatic and recent phenomena. This has everything to do with the upcoming election.

Raise your hands everyone who would like to see a government with long-term vision and a clear sense of how to secure our lively-hoods and communities for decades to come. If this is what you think government should be doing, the election landscape must seem pretty bleak to you. Future fiscal security first and foremost has to do with the environment. The Liberals have failed miserably to address environmental issues; even the United States has reduced damaging emissions more than we have as a nation. The Conservatives seem to have no specific plan in their platform; traditionally environmental issues have conflicted with Conservative pro-business and pro-free trade agendas. The NDP have made their platform more environmentally conscious and have some good specific goals, but I am distressed that it took pressure from the popular vote of the Green Party for them to make that move. It seems to me ethical issues like this takes leadership not playing games with votes. The Greens are the only party who have that vision but are being marginalized by mainstream media in favour of the status quo. Clearly, if you are environmentally aware and concerned, the landscape (at least the one painted by the CBC—without representation by the Green Party) is bleak indeed.

Receding polar ice caps, increased hurricane activity, pine beetle epidemics, disappearing frog populations in the southern americas—these are just the tip of the iceberg; we are in for a rough time. If you look around you and, in the pit of your gut, feel like something is not right . . . perhaps even horrific . . . in the air, then it seems to me dramatic political change is needed. Tell politicians they have to have long-term environmental vision, vote Green, support electoral change, force the issue, so that when our kids are our age, they won’t be sitting in a stew of failing ecosystems and economies.